A high altitude balloon refers to manned and unmanned balloons that can be released at ground level and climb into the troposphere, stratosphere, and even the mesosphere. High altitude balloons are filled with a lifting gas or with air maintaining an internal temperature higher than its surrounding atmospheric air temperature, thus generating lift. Prior high altitude balloons are made up of a large number of gores attached to each other. The term “gore” refers to a tapering sector of a curved surface, such as the typical tapering panels of a hot-air balloon, parachute, beach ball, or conventional plastic film high altitude balloon. A “gored balloon,” as used herein, refers to a balloon comprised of a body having a plurality of gores attached to each other.
Existing gored balloons are formed by carefully cutting and connecting tens, and up to hundreds, of gores to form the balloon body, often referred to as the envelope. Envelopes are made on long tables with a multitude of complex seams and end termination caps. The process of attaching the balloons' numerous tapered gores to one another is performed mainly by a hand guided process that plays a significant role in the large amounts of time, and thus costs, invested in the balloons' manufacture and handling. As a result, lighter-than-air product manufacturers have been unable to significantly increase high altitude balloon production. These substantially hand-fabricated balloons also inherently have variations in performance, such as leak resistance and flight duration, because the production of each balloon is performed slightly differently than the others. Seams leak, manufacture is often inconsistent, and the cost per balloon is high because of the manual labor required. Because of the above mentioned factors, the mass production of high altitude balloons, including zero pressure high altitude balloons and superpressure high altitude balloons, has remained unavailable.
The membrane (or film or material) typically used for high altitude balloons is thin and delicate compared to most other inflatable products. In order to float to high altitudes with a minimum balloon surface area and minimum amount of lift gas, only lightweight materials are suitable for the high altitude balloon membrane. Blimps and aerostats, on the other hand, are made from much thicker and robust materials because of their substantially lower altitude requirements.
Maneuvering high altitude balloon materials in the envelope fabrication process has proven very difficult to achieve on a consistent basis, and as such, the margin for error is very low. The slightest slip of a film guiding hand can cause a failure inducing wrinkle or leak path anywhere along the myriad of seam lengths, and manually maneuvered heat sealing machines used to couple together adjacent gores often vary the quality of seam strength and integrity. Even if just an inch out of hundreds of feet in seam quality is compromised, the balloon will quickly fail at its weakest point and descend. Thus, the assembly of conventional gored balloons requires countless manual labor hours, excessive material handling, specialized equipment, and years of domain expertise to correctly complete.
As a result of recent increased demand for high altitude balloons for telecommunications purposes, among a host of other applications, it is now desirable to build large constellations of reliable floating platforms that can remain in the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. To achieve the desired performance of remaining aloft for months at a time and production at a fraction of current costs, the balloon production must be highly automated to achieve mass production on a consistent, reliable basis. It is therefore desirable to replace manual balloon manufacturing with more controllable automation technologies. Efficient automated mass production of other inflatable products, such as large liquid bladders, flexible gas containers, water sport toys, advertising balloons, blimps, among other lighter-than-air and general inflatable uses, is also desirable.